The Lucky One
by dyingXdasies
Summary: While stationed in Iraq Arnold faces a near death experience&stumbles across a beautiful woman's photograph. Vowing to find and thank her for giving him the inspiration to fight and survive the war he sets out on a quest to find his guardian angel. Trouble comes tumbling down though when he finds her and also finds that her heart is vowed to another. A picture says a thousand words
1. Chapter 1

Thank you for reading this. I am working on my story 13 reasons why but felt the need to post this. I want to continue but only if I have a decent amount of reviews and viewers indicating that I should take the time to try and balance these two stories instead of just my one. So if you like this speak now or forever hold your peace. Enjoy.

* * *

They were tainted fireworks. Blasting in colors of iron grey and blistering reds. Men raced into foxholes howling in horror. Bodies splayed across the barren land. "_There is no atheist in foxholes"_. The quote tantalized the young blonde as he army crawled cowering for safety.

"Man down; man down!" the phrase echoed across the vast desert. His jade eyes brimmed with tears as he embraced that those would perhaps be the last words he'd ever hear. Bombs continued to blast deafening. He could taste a metallic texture in his mouth. Arnold began to associate the taste with blood he was bleeding! Arnold realized he was dying. A cynical part of him found relief in this fact as he clutched his gun slinking into a dug up hole. At last he would find serenity and silence.

A lopsided grin curled across his lips as his eyes half lidded over. He could almost hear his grandparent's laughter. He would be with them soon enough. Then suddenly, the heavens conveyed a message to him, fluttering like an ivory snowflake amongst the dirt and grime was a single photo the top right corner torn off. Arnold stretched out his slender dirty hands to clutch the photo. He gasped stunned as he gazed into the sapphire eyes of the most beautiful blonde stranger he'd ever seen. He touched the photograph timidly his finger tracing across her platinum ringlets. He fell in love with the image of her face. She was his guardian angel. Arnold would survive this warfare. When he was released he'd find this woman. Find his guardian angel, his loving angel.

* * *

Helga wept over her long loving boyfriend Brian's grave. She shredded the flowers in her rage sapphire eyes bleeding mascara. She tugged at her loose strands of curls. Across her neck she wore his nametags. They'd given him a Purple Heart. What use was a Purple Heart when her heart remained black and blue bleeding from her loss? He'd been torn to pieces when they'd found him. He'd had nothing left to his identity but serial numbers on a silver tag. They said he'd been clutching on to something. Clinging to it for dear life even. Brian had been holding some sort of paper. During gunfire it had slipped from his fingertips only a corner piece had remained in his possession.

Helga did not dwell on it for too long engulfed in agony otherwise. Bravely she stiffened her upper lip and rose to her feet striding as she headed to the veteran's home for a charity. It was the charity drive that had risen her hurt memories of Brian, which is why she paid him a visit this morning. Six months later and it still felt like he'd been right beside her just yesterday ready to be stationed off to Iraq for the last time. Helga vowed that her heart had taken off on that plane with Brian. She vowed never to love again come hell or high waters.

* * *

**_Little did both Arnold and Helga know that the cosmos was once more forcing them to collide together. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The lost picture of one boy would change the lives of thousands. This is the story of a boy_**,_** a girl, and the picture that brought them together. The story of the lucky one.**_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

"There's love of course; and then there's life, it's enemy." –Jean Anouilh

Don't ever question

* * *

Arnold sat on the bus as he prepared for his welcoming back home. Hillwood would be holding a Veteran's dinner. After the dinner and the small talk he would make his way towards finding his mystery woman from the picture now nestled in his chest pocket. Arnold pulled out an old tattered letter or rather song he'd kept through his entire stationing he had yet to send it to the addressed. It was a letter to his long pined for but rejected love Helga Pataki.

Arnold opened it hesitant. He had read it a million times the paper tattered and damaged. He had used it to get him through many squelching hot desert nights. He had never had the courage to send it to her though. This time the song would hold new meaning. This time he read it to let her go to embrace whatever fate he may have with the photographed blonde in his pocket.

_Enough to hold you to the brightest of lights,_

_to place you dangerously close to that sun,_

_enough to acknowledge the flaws you can't ignore_

_and recognize the cause of what's done is done,_

_more than enough to put my name behind my ideals,_

_and neglect my logic twice daily._

_enough to keep me looking for my Lucy in the sky with gems,_

_when I remember how you used to call me baby,_

_enough to look in my mirror with detest for every tear you shed regardless of_

_why you wept,_

_enough to curse any man who can't appreciate the depth of the ocean I swam_

_till I ran out of breath._

_I love you, don't ever question that,_

_that's why we'll probably never get along._

_if I was better at finding the right words to say, I wouldn't need to write_

_this song._

_I love you, I love you!_

In his mind's eye he could see her silhouette raised slightly above his. He could still taste her swollen pink lips from their secret want ton kisses. He could hear her raspy feminine voice hissing in his ear her philosophies and deep worldly views. A lifetime of deep oceans expressed in a single wasted summer of emotion. Oh how Arnold had wasted away years later for a broken heart. Years of agony for four months of bliss. He'd fallen in love but had also learned what occurs when the other person refuses to catch you.

* * *

_never, don't ever question that, don't ever question that._

_riding the public transit,_

_I study the blank stares to answer my questions of how and why I got so many_

_Grey hairs. I take care of the nervous that runs through my extension cord,_

_and I reflect on that reoccurring dream where we met the Lord._

_single file lines, to give her a pound one at a time but when I faced her-_

_I attempted to embrace her, she looked so fine,_

_I awoke from my sleep before her bodyguard had a chance to beat me to_

_submission and I still walk with my religion._

_I watched the children scurry in circles around a two-way mirror,_

_worrying about which side of the glass projects the reflection clearer._

_hear the whispers of the wind trying to get me to grin,_

_gassing' me up about the love that I plucked and I've been stuck within,_

_for every eclipse that stares at me from the other side of a paper cup of_

_espresso-_

_I light a match beneath a kettle,_

_and for every set of lips that become attached and equipped with that program_

_to seek success, I bleed my ethics out a slow drip._

His mind reeled as a million memories flashed before his jade eyes. He recalled all the fistfights he'd gotten into in order to attempt protecting her. All the bruises those fights had left across his pale ivory skin. How wrong he knew using his actions were but didn't care because when it came to Helga he could for once in his life be wrong and be naughty. Arnold remembered the date nights huddled together sipping coffees by the chimney at the poetry club. Each moment that he returned to was like picking at a scab. Arnold was a paper man cutting himself with his own pair of scissors. His own memories making him suffer. He knew he should rip the letter. Tare away at every single aspect of his life he'd shared with Helga by destroying the letter. He couldn't erase history no matter how desperately he needed to.

* * *

_I know a man who met a woman, don't remember where,_

_big beautiful blue eyes and light blonde hair,_

_she was from the burbs, he was from the south side of the city,_

_this was back when Franklin Avenue was still pretty._

_two different worlds apart, but the world is just a small town-_

_we all know how people like to get down._

_here we go, Aries, Libra,_

_feel the flow of the fluid as I swim through it to free my soul._

_push shoved the cane without the glove numbed the pain._

_the magic from up above what it does for the brain._

_make the love, paint the picture, write the song,_

_make the love, paint the picture, write the song,_

_make the love, paint the picture, write the song._

He had known her his entire life and weather he was willing to admit it or not letting Helga go would be in essence letting a piece of himself leave as well. He was ready though, it'd been a long time since he'd turned the corner to collide onto the hot pavement with his own little spit fire blonde. They were no longer those two city kids crashing into one another forced to share each other's small worlds. The world had turned out to be a big place. It was time to let go. He had to let her memoir in his heart free in order to let his own soul free. Nothing good or bad last forever. Whatever Helga was to Arnold good or bad it was time to turn the page and forget. He'd never had to question the fact that he'd loved her but she had. She had always questioned him. No more questioning now; now Arnold had an answer. His answer was to wipe his hands clean of a lost cause. Arnold Shortman was ready to wipe his hands clean of Helga Pataki.

_I love you- don't ever question that, that's why we'll probably never_

_get along. if I was better at finding the right words to say, I wouldn't need_

_to write this song!_

_I love you (make the love, paint the picture, and write that song)._

_I love you.. I love you.._

* * *

Arnold got off the bus and brushed his fingers to the edge corner of the letter. He took a deep calming breath as he began to rip the paper. He had only torn the corner. He could not bring himself to destroy tainted love letter. Angry he threw it into the breeze. Let the words race through whoever's mind that finds it but no longer would he let them linger in his. He released three years of weight from himself as the seemingly weightless paper sailed away with the wind. He wasn't allowed any more time to deeply ponder his decision to let it go.

"Arnold it's ever so wonderful to see you again!" Lila Sawyer called out with her Southern Charm.

Her red ringlets bouncing around her oval face as she rushed into Arnold's arms. He held her taking in her honeysuckle scent. Lila had been right at the bus stop waiting to pick Arnold up. Arnold loved Lila. Weather he was in love with her was another question. She'd been his friend, lover, and ex lover. All in all though Lila had remained his closest ally.

"Lila you look amazing." Arnold pined for her as his lips brushed across her freckled cheek.

She beamed her long fingers tenderly stroking his light bristles of blonde facial hair. "Oh Arnold, I was worried I'd never see you again." A few tears streamed down her cheeks and Arnold clenched his strong jaw as he wiped the tears away.

"Come on Arnold lets go home." Arnold smiled even after being broken up she'd called their old apartment "their" home. Arnold wrapped his hand around Lila's happy to see an old familiar friendly face. "There's a dinner for the soldier's tonight. Everyone is anticipating his or her reunion with you! There's so much to talk about!" She exclaimed excited. Arnold merely smiled as he let her drag him to her little yellow beetle.

* * *

**Miles away the love letter had at last reached its addressee. As Helga walked to the city hall a crumpled piece of paper had smacked her right across the face. Helga had meant to toss it back into the street when the message inside had caught her eye. She'd read it repeatedly as she walked. It was an anonymous writer but whomever wrote it had touched her heart more in the past minute, then anyone else ever had in her twenty three years.**


End file.
